Cheater Lasagna!

Cheater Lasagna!

Why “cheater” you ask, well, because it doesn’t have any noodles and I used jarred pasta sauce! This can easily be made on a weeknight as long as you have your components made ahead of time, so its super easy! Here’s what I did: I took one japanese eggplant and one medium zucchini and sliced the lengthwise – these are your “noodles”. I made the cashew ricotta from Veganomicon! I used 1/2 an onion, 4 cloves of garlic ( I like garlic you can use less), 1/2 of a red bellpepper, and about 6 shitake mushrooms – all sliced and sauteed in a little olive oil. I also used some Trader Joe’s Organic Marinara Sauce – use whatever kind you like. The topping is stale whole wheat bread ground up in a food processor with some oregano, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder – I used about a cup of these breadcrumbs and added 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast!

To assemble take a baking dish and lightly coat the bottom with olive oil. Place a layer of eggplant as your base. The next layer is the ricotta, then the rest of the eggplant. Add some sauce to the top of the eggplant and then add the sauteed veggies. A layer of the zucchini is next and then some more of the ricotta. The last layer is the rest of the zucchini, some sauce, and then the bread crumb mixture. Cover with foil and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 45 minutes. Uncover (test with a knife to ensure all your layers are cooked), raise the temp to 400 degrees and bake for about another 15 minutes until the top is golden. Let cool before slicing or it might fall apart! This is what it looked like:

Cheater Lasagna

It was sooo tasty! I totally did not miss the noodles or the cheese! The cashew tofu ricotta bakes up wonderfully and all of these flavors worked very well together.

Veggie Lasagna

I will definitely be making this again!

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Farmer’s Market & Grilling Sundays!

Every Sunday I head over to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market to load up on fresh, locally grown fruits & veggies for the week. I not only save money, but I find that I am highly disappointed if I shop at any grocery store. The quality and taste is far superior! Check out this week’s haul:

FM Haul!

I got  all of this beautiful produce for $22.50! But wait there’s more:

Shitake!

Those shitake mushrooms are simply beautiful! Oh and I also got some okra:

Okra

Can you believe I got all this stuff for such little money! My new obsession are these japanese eggplants. Not only are they pretty but oh so delicious. They are not bitter at all and their texture is just divine! The grower I get them from told me they will be in season for the next month or two and I plan to eat as many as I can til then!

japanese eggplant

I couldn’t resist getting these white pattypan squashes because they were so attractive (OMG I find vegetables attractive…):

Pattypan Squash

I finally busted out the Weber last weekend and plan to regularly grill every Sunday for the summer. Nothing beats drinking a few cold ones and driving your neighbors crazy because you’re only grilling veggies and fruit! All of the veggies are grilled with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Here is that lovely japanese eggplant:

grilled eggplant

Grilled Okra (which by the way tastes delicious when grilled):

grilled okra

Cherry tomatoes and assorted mushroom skewers (my two vices – I could eat these for days!):

Tomatoes and Mushrooms!

I also grilled an avocado. Yes, an avocado! Grilled avocado tastes quiet earthy and nutty and is just absolutely amazing! If you’ve never had one, I highly recommend it! Once its cooled scoop it out with some chips or spread it on bread…

Grilled Avocado!

And last but not least I also grilled some Tofurky Beer Brats because as you well know us vegans need our protein 🙂

Tofurky Beer Brat

This was my first time having one of these and it was pretty tasty!

I am totally set for the week now with a ton of great tasting grilled veggies that I can make sandwiches with, make a pizza or pasta, or just eat right out of the fridge cuz they’re just that damn tasty! My goal is to post once a week about my Sunday farmer’s market haul and grilling extraveganza so I hope you enjoyed this post!

  

Homemade Bagels, Part Deux!

As promised, here is the 2nd installment of my life with homemade bagels…

Homemade Bagels!

Aside from eating these toasted with Earth Balance, I decided to make some veggie patties so I could make bagel sandwiches! I had some leftover cooked wild rice/brown rice combo and decided to make red kidney bean wild rice patties. Here is the recipe I made up:

Red Kidney Bean Wild Rice Burgers

Yields aprox. 6 burgers

 15 oz. can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

½ cup onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup red bell pepper, diced

1 cup crimini mushrooms, diced

1 ½ cups cooked wild rice

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. parsley flakes

½ tsp. sage

½ tsp. chili powder

1/2 cup cornmeal

 Directions:

 In a food processor add all of the ingredients except the cornmeal. Process for a few seconds and scrape down the sides. When it is well incorporated start to add the cornmeal a little at a time. Process for a few more seconds and check the consistency. You may need to add more or less cornmeal until the mixture is neither too wet nor too dry. The mixture should be a good consistency for forming patties. Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning to your taste.

 Transfer the mixture to a bowl and put in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place a silicon mat, parchment paper, or lightly grease a cookie sheet. Form the dough into balls and press into patties of the desired size.  Bake for 15 minutes and then flip the burgers and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

I didn’t have any breadcrumbs so I used cormeal as a binder instead. I was really pleased with the result as the cormeal gave the patties a nice crunchy texture!

Red Kidney Bean Wild Rice Burgers

These were so yummy and it brought me a sense of accomplishment that I hade made everything myself in my kitchen! So if you’ve never tried to make homemade bagels, I highly recommend you head over to Kamutflake Girl’s  blog and grab the recipe for these tasty bagels!

I also made this pumpkin cheesecake from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook  with a pistachio, date, and cardamom crust.  It’s tasty but wasn’t quite the texture I expected – more pumpkin pie than pumpkin cheesecake! The inspiration for this came from Swell Vegan’s beautiful raw pumpkin pie!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

And if that isn’t enough I scored some beautiful portabella mushrooms at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market and had to bust out the Weber! Of course these mushrooms couldn’t just go any any store bought bread so I had to make some Rosemary Focaccia Rolls from Veganomicon! I used Isa’s recipe for the marinade from here.

Portabella!

The sandwich is the grilled portabella, grilled red peppers and green onions, red leaf lettuce, some Vegenaise, and some grilled japanese eggplant – simply delicious! Funny story: while at one of my favorite vendors at the fm, I came across these beautful japanese eggplants. I knew they were eggplant but I wasn’t certain of the variety. I asked what they were and the lady told me they were japanese eggplant. I replied that they were beautiful but I wasn’t certain what I’d do with it. She said “why cook it and eat it of course!” We both looked at each other and started laughing hilariously – classic!